Methods and systems for recommending decision makers in an organization

ABSTRACT

This disclosure provides for systems and methods directed to generating colleague recommendations within a social network service. The systems and methods may include identifying a sample member of a social network service and determining an organizational unit associated with the sample member. The sample member may be associated with prior member activity involving a source member and the organizational unit may represent a department within an organization. The systems and methods may also include identifying various candidate members, where the candidate members are associated with the organizational unit. The systems and methods may also include surfacing the plurality of candidate members to a computer system being operated by the source member.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. Pat. App. No.61/884,898, filed Sep. 30, 2013 and titled “METHODS AND SYSTEMS FORRECOMMENDING DECISION MAKERS IN AN ORGANIZATION,” the disclosure ofwhich is incorporated by reference herein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to data processing systems.More specifically, the present disclosure relates to methods, systems,and computer program products for generating recommendations of membersof a social network service.

BACKGROUND

A social network service may be a computer or web-based service thatenables users to establish links or connections with persons for thepurpose of sharing information with one another. Some social networkservices aim to enable friends and family to communicate and share withone another, while others are specifically directed to business userswith a goal of facilitating the establishment of professional networksand the sharing of business information. For purposes of the presentdisclosure, the terms “social network” and “social network service” areused in a broad sense and are meant to encompass services aimed atconnecting friends and family (often referred to simply as “socialnetworks”), as well as services that are specifically directed toenabling business people to connect and share business information (alsocommonly referred to as “social networks” but sometimes referred to as“business networks” or “professional networks”).

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not limitation inthe FIGs. of the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating various components or functionalmodules of a social network service, consistent with some embodiments;

FIG. 2 is a data diagram illustrating an example of a data model,according to an example embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a user interface diagram illustrating an example of a userinterface or web page for displaying recommendation clusters, consistentwith some embodiments;

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method of generatingrecommendation clusters, according to an example embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example data model of anorganizational taxonomy that includes feedback data gathered by, forexample, the feedback module of FIG. 1, according to an exampleembodiment; and

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a machine in the form of a computing devicewithin which a set of instructions, for causing the machine to performany one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present disclosure describes methods, systems and computer programproducts that individually or in combination generate colleaguerecommendations of members of a social network service to other membersof the social networking system. In the following description, forpurposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects ofdifferent embodiments of the disclosed systems and methods. It will beevident, however, to one skilled in the art, that the disclosedembodiments may be practiced without all of the specific details.

Consistent with some embodiments, a social network service provides amember (referred herein as a “source member”) with a recommendationservice that generates recommendations of members of the social networkservice that may be of interest to the source member. For example, someembodiments may be used to generate colleague recommendations. A“colleague recommendation,” as used herein, may refer to arecommendation of a member profile within the social network servicethat may belong to an organizational unit that is the same or similar tothe organizational unit of another member profile of the social networkservice. As is explained in greater detail below, whether memberprofiles belong to the same or similar organizations may be based on anorganizational similarity score calculated for those members. Further,in some cases, some embodiments may select a member profile as thecolleague recommendation based on an estimation of that member profilesimportance within the department. In this way, some embodiments may beable to provide source members with a recommendation for a “decisionmaker” within a department.

To generate a colleague recommendation, example embodiments of therecommendation service may track member activity (e.g., page views,messages, and the like) between a source member and one or more memberprofiles. A member profile that has been involved with member activityinitiated by the source member may be referred to as a “sample member.”The recommendation service may then generate a colleague recommendationon the sample member. As an example application, a sales tool may allowa sales person (e.g., the source member) to view a member profile of apotential buyer within a company (e.g., the sample member). The viewedmember profile is then selected as the member profile to be the basisfor the colleague recommendation.

Based on the sample member associated with the tracked memberactivities, example embodiments may then determine an organizationalunit associated with the sample member. An “organizational unit” may bea term used herein that refers to data or logic representing adepartment within an organization. In some cases, the organizationalunit of an organization is not specified by the organization.Accordingly, some example embodiments may build organizational models ofan organization by generating clusters of member profiles based onmember connections within the social network service (e.g., connectionsthe sample member has with other members of the social graph that workat the same company), feedback from users of the social networkingservice, or any other suitable data.

The recommendation service may then identify one or more candidatemembers based on an organization similarity using the organizationalunit associated with the sample member. In some cases, the organizationsimilarity score may be based on a comparison between the organizationalunit associated with the sample member and an organizational unitassociated with the one or more candidate members. In some embodiments,the recommendation service may calculate the organizational similaritybased on a graph factor that may be referred to as “graph similarity.”The graph similarity between two member profiles may be a function thatis driven by the number of common colleague connections.

In some embodiments, the recommendation service may rank the one or morecandidates based on a ranking of the one or more candidates within anorganization. For example, in some cases, the recommendation service mayrank the one or more candidates based on the seniority or job title ofthe candidates. In this way, the recommendation service may make arecommendation that includes the decision makers of an organizationalunit.

In some cases, the recommendation service may include a feedback systemthat updates models of an organizational unit for an organization or thebusiness decision score for a candidate member.

It is to be appreciated that colleague recommendations generated by someexample embodiments may have many practical advantages. For example, andnot limitation, some example embodiments may be used to identify thedecision makers for a department within a company, for example. Such atool may be useful for sales people who may be attempting to sell aproduct or service to a particular company. To illustrate, a salesperson may use a sales solutions product to find and contact employeesat a company. In order to close a deal, the sale person may beinterested in maximizing the number and the quality of relationshipshe/she has within the company. Accordingly, some example embodimentsdescribed herein may allow a sales person to search a social graph of asocial network service to find member profiles matching initial searchcriteria (e.g., keywords, title, skills, and the like). Upon visiting amember profile identified in the search result, an example embodimentmay then use attributes associated with the visited member profile togenerate a colleague recommendation that include one or more memberprofiles that may work with the visited member profiles. In some cases,the colleague recommendation may be presented such that member profilesare ranked according to a prediction of how important that member iswithin their department. A colleague recommendation generated in thisway may provide a suggestion to the sales person as to who should becontacted regarding a purchase decision.

These and other example embodiments are now described in greater detailbelow.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating various components or functionalmodules of a social network service 100, consistent with someembodiments. As shown in FIG. 1, the front end consists of a userinterface module (e.g., a web server) 112, which receives requests fromvarious client-computing devices, and communicates appropriate responsesto the requesting client devices. For example, the user interfacemodule(s) 112 may receive requests in the form of Hypertext TransportProtocol (HTTP) requests, or other web-based, application programminginterface (API) requests. The application logic layer includes variousapplication server modules 114, which, in conjunction with the userinterface module(s) 112, generates various user interfaces (e.g., webpages) with data retrieved from various data sources in the data layer.With some embodiments, individual application server modules 114 areused to implement the functionality associated with various services andfeatures of the social network service. For instance, the ability togenerate colleague recommendations for a source member may be service(or services) implemented in independent application server modules 114.Similarly, a variety of other applications or services that are madeavailable to members of the social network service will be embodied intheir own application server modules 114. For example, with someembodiments, the social network system 110 includes modules that mayindividually or in combination provide a colleague recommendationservice, such as a recommendation module 116, a presentation module 117,and a feedback module 119. The recommendation module 116 may be acomputer-implemented module configured to generate colleaguerecommendations. Example embodiments may use a variety of information togenerate the colleague recommendations, such as attributes obtained fromsample members and an organizational model. As described above, a samplemember may refer to a member profile that the source member hasperformed some member activity on. Visiting the profile page of thesample member, messaging the sample member, saving the source member ina contact list, “introducing” the sample member to another memberprofile, are examples of member activities.

The presentation module 117 may be a computer-implemented moduleconfigured to generate user interface elements for interacting with thedecision maker recommendations. For instance, the presentation module117 may generate user interface elements that may execute on a clientdevice. For example, the presentation module 117 may generate userinterface elements that, when executed on a client device operated bythe source member, display one or more colleague recommendations anduser interface control elements for interacting with the displayedcolleague recommendations.

As shown in FIG. 1, the data layer includes several databases, such as adatabase 118 for storing profile data. Consistent with some embodiments,when a person initially registers to become a member of the socialnetwork service, the person will be prompted to provide some personalinformation, such as his or her name, age (e.g., birthdate), gender,interests, contact information, home town, address, the names of themember's spouse and/or family members, educational background (e.g.,schools, majors, matriculation and/or graduation dates, etc.),employment history, skills, professional organizations, and so on. Thisinformation is stored, for example, in the database with referencenumber 118.

Once registered, a member may invite other members, or be invited byother members, to connect via the social network service. A “connection”may require a bi-lateral agreement by the members, such that bothmembers acknowledge the establishment of the connection. It is to beappreciated that members may “connect” with entities other than memberprofiles, such as companies, groups, or any other suitable cohort. Thevarious associations and relationships that the members establish withother members, or with other entities represented by date stored in thedatabase 118, are stored and maintained within the social graph, shownin FIG. 1 with reference number 120.

The social network service 100 may provide a broad range of otherapplications and services that allow members the opportunity to shareand receive information, often customized to the interests of themember. For example, with some embodiments, the social network servicemay include a photo sharing application that allows members to uploadand share photos with other members. With some embodiments, members maybe able to self-organize into groups, or interest groups, organizedaround a subject matter or topic of interest. With some embodiments, thesocial network service 100 may host various job listings providingdetails of job openings with various organizations.

As members interact with the various applications, services and contentmade available via the social network service, the members' behavior(e.g., content (e.g., profiles) viewed, links selected, messages sent,etc.) may be monitored and information concerning the member's behaviormay be stored, for example, as indicated in FIG. 1 by the database withreference number 122. One type of behavior data that may be stored indatabase 122 is member activity between a member having one memberprofile with another member having another member profile. As describedabove, examples of member activities include activities where onemember: visits a profile page of a member, messages the member, savesthe member in a contact list, introduces the member to another memberprofile.

FIG. 2 is a data diagram illustrating an example of a data model 200,according to an example embodiment. The data model 200 may conceptuallydescribe the data and relationships stored in databases 118, 120, 222.For example, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the data model 200 may include asample member 202, an organization 204, candidate members 206, and anorganizational model 208. The sample member 202 and the candidatemembers 206 may be member profiles of the social network service 100, asmay be stored in the database 118. As described above, the sample member202 may represent the profile of a member of the social network servicethat the source member has viewed in the past or has otherwise performeda member activity on. Further, the candidate members 206 may representthe profiles of members of the social network service that may bepotentially surfaced to the source member as colleague recommendation.

The organization 204 may be a profile within the social network servicethat represents a business entity, such as a corporation, partnership,company, or any other suitable business organization. In some cases, theprofile of the organization is created by a representative of thebusiness entity that may have been granted authority to perform actionswithin the social network service on behalf of the business entity.

The organizational model 208 may be a data representation of theorganizational structure for the organization 204. For example, theorganizational model 208 may characterize the structure of theorganization 204 by specifying one or more organizational units 208A-B.An organizational unit may be data or logic representing a department ofthe real-world organization. It is to be appreciated that compared toteams, organizational units are more generic and usually includemultiple teams. For example, an organization may include anorganizational unit that contains multiple sub-teams.

In many embodiments, the social network may not have data that specifiesthe exact name of each organizational unit for each organization.Accordingly, some embodiments may introduce an organizational unittaxonomy the can be used as a standard model for a structure of anorganization. These standardized organizational unit taxonomies may bedefined for different types of organizations. In some embodiments, therecommendation module 116 may include an inference system to nameorganization units identified in a social graph of member profilesworking at a given organization. Given member position data likefunction, title or skills the recommendation system 116 may infer thenature of the organization unit name. For instance, it's likely that ifmost of people at a department have “Sales” as a skill they work in thesales department.

In other cases, the structure of the organizational model 208 may be inwhole or in part be defined by feedback from members of the socialnetwork. For example, users of the social network service with anunderstanding of how the business entity represented by the organization204 is set up may provide feedback on the organizational units of theorganization 204.

By way of example and not limitation, Table 1 illustrates an exampleorganizational unit taxonomy.

TABLE 1 Organizational Unit Name Description Marketing Departmenthandling activities aiming at making the brand recognizable.Finance/Accounting Department handling all activities related tomanaging the organization's finance, such as: accounting, financialreporting, etc. Human Resources Department handling all activitiesrelated to managing human capital. Management Department handlingactivities related to widely defined management of the organization.Research Development Department handling all activities related tofinding new solutions, new markets, new ideas and implementing them ifregarded valuable for organization. Procurement/Purchasing Departmenthandling activities related to managing supplies in the enterprise andprocurement process management. Administration Department implementingfiscal and administrative policies in the organization. InventoryDepartment which tracks and accounts for capital equipment owned by orloaned to the organization. Customer Service Department handling allactivities related to anticipating customer needs and building goodrelationship with customer. Logistics Department handling planning,execution and control of the movement and placement of people and/orgoods and of the supporting activities related to such movement andplacement. Operations Department handling activities connected with coreof companies business activity. Corporate Communications Department thatacts as first point of contact for the media and general enquiries.Department which shapes the organization's image in media.Sales/Business Development Department handling activities connected withsales management and processing. International Affairs Departmenthandling all activities concerning relations with other companies fromabroad. Information Technology Department handling the management of theinternal computer systems used to support the business activity of anorganization. Engineering Department handling activities relating to thedesign, development, testing of new products, systems, or services.Legal Department handling activities connected with providing legalservices and advice to the company, its divisions and employees.Facilities Department handling activities connected with coordination ofspace, infrastructure, people and organization. Manufacturing/QualityDepartment handling functions of turning inputs into finished outputsthrough a series of production processes.

Continuing with FIG. 2, the data model 200 may include relationshipsbetween the sample member 202, the organization 204, the candidatemembers 206, and the organizational model 208. For example, a “WorksFor” relationship 210 may exist between the organization 204 and thesample member 202 and also the candidate members 206. The “Works For”relationship 210 signifies that a member represented by the memberprofiles of the sample member 202 or the candidate members 206 is anemployee of the organization. In a social network service the “WorksFor” relationship 210 may be created when a person creates a profilewithin the social network service and then lists the organization 204 asan employer.

The “Organized As” relationship 214 may be a relationship between anorganization and an organizational model that characterizes anorganizational structure for the business entity represented by theorganization 204. The “Organized As” relationship 214 may be created bya member authorized to edit the profile of the organization (e.g., anadministrator) or, additionally or alternatively, by input or feedbackfrom members of the social network.

The “Works Within” relationship 212 may be a relationship between amember profile and an organizational unit of the organizational model308 that specifies the member works within a department specified by theorganizational unit. For example, FIG. 2 shows that the “Works Within”relationship 212 may specify that the sample member 202 works within theorganizational unit 208A.

It is to be appreciated that the data model 200 shown in FIG. 2 isprovided merely for illustration. Some embodiments may use differentdata models and still be consistent with this disclosure. For example,some embodiments may represent the organizational model 208 as aproperty or field within the organization 204, rather than a separatedata object connected relationship data.

FIG. 3 is a user interface diagram illustrating an example of a userinterface 300 or web page for displaying colleague recommendation to asource member, consistent with some embodiments. In example embodiments,the presentation module 217 may generate data representing the userinterface 300 in response to recommendations generated by therecommendation module 316.

As illustrated in FIG. 3, the user interface 300 may include a memberprofile display 302 that the user interface 300 displays in conjunctionwith a recommendation module 304. The member profile display 302 may bea computer-implemented user interface element that is configured todisplay a visual representation of information derived from a samplemember. In some cases, the attributes displayed by the member profiledisplay 302 may be data fields of the member profile and, in othercases, the attributes may be based on relationship data that connectsthe member profile to other profiles (e.g., company profiles, memberprofiles, group profiles, and the like).

The recommendation module 304 may be a computer-implemented userinterface element that is configured to display one or more colleaguerecommendations to the user. For example, the recommendation module 304of FIG. 3 displays a visual representation of the colleaguerecommendations 306A-C. Each colleague recommendation may be a userinterface element configured to represent a member profile identified bythe recommendation module 116 from the candidate members 206. As isexplained in greater detail below, a colleague recommendation may beselected by the recommendation module 116 based at least in part on asimilarity between a candidate member and a sample member. As is alsoexplained in greater detail below, a colleague recommendation may beselected by the recommendation module 116 based further on a comparisonof organizational units associated with the sample member and thecandidate members.

In some cases, a colleague recommendation may include user interfaceelements for providing feedback data usable to improve the colleaguerecommendations generated by the recommendation module 116. For example,as shown in FIG. 3, the colleague recommendation 306A includes anegative feedback element 308 and a positive feedback element 310. Thenegative feedback element 308 may be a user interface element that maybe used to specify that the member profile 306A is not of interest tothe source member. In some embodiments, the number of times a negativefeedback element 308 is initiated by source members for a particularmember profile in a colleague recommendation may cause therecommendation module 116 to lower the ranking of that member profilewhen the recommendation module 116 generates subsequent colleaguerecommendations. The negative feedback element 308, if activated by thesource member, may cause the presentation module 117 to remove thecolleague recommendation 306A from the recommendation module 304.

The positive feedback element 310 may be a user interface element thatmay be used to specify that the member profile 306A is of interest tothe source member. In some embodiments, the number of times a positivefeedback element is initiated by source members for a particular memberprofile in a colleague recommendation may cause the recommendationmodule 116 to increase the ranking of that member profile when therecommendation module 116 generates subsequent colleaguerecommendations. The positive feedback element 310, if activated by thesource member, may cause the presentation module 117 to store thecolleague recommendation 306A in a contact data structure associatedwith the source member.

Thus, the negative feedback element 308 and the positive feedbackelement 310 may be a mechanism for users of the recommendation serviceto “down” or “up” vote a particular colleague recommendation.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 400 of generating acolleague recommendation, according to an example embodiment. The method400 may begin at operation 402 when an application or service (e.g., therecommendation module 116) of the social network system 110 identifies asample member that can be used to generate a colleague recommendation.In an example embodiment, the sample member may be identified based onmember activity involving the source member and the identified samplemember. For example, some embodiments may identify member profiles thatthe source member has sent a message to in the past or has previouslyvisited. As described above, “visiting” may be a term that can refer toan action provided by the social network service where one member (e.g.,the source member) can view the profile, or some subset thereof, ofanother member. As described above, visiting and messaging members areexamples of member activity that may be stored in the database 122 ofFIG. 1. Other examples of member activity that may be used to identifysample members include search terms used by the member profile toidentify relevant members, member profiles saved in a contact list bythe source member, member profiles “introduced” to the source member byanother member, and any other such member activity.

At operation 404, the recommendation module 116 may determine anorganizational unit associated with the sample member. Determining anorganizational unit may be based on the connections in the social graphof the social network service. Connections between colleagues form a“company graph”, where nodes are employees and edges are connectionsbetween employees. The recommendation module 116 may use a clusteringalgorithm to find sets of nodes that are grouped together. In oneexample embodiment, the recommendation module 116 may use a clusteringalgorithm that is based on clustering nodes based on common connectionsin the company graph.

In some cases, operation 404 may be performed to map the member profilesof an organization to organizational units as part of a batch processthat operates in the background. For example, the recommendation module116 may be used to generate a “Works Within” relationship with anorganizational unit of the organization that employs the samplecandidate. In some cases, the “Works Within” relationship may bedetermined based on a function that compares the attributes of thesample member with an attribute profile associated with theorganizational unit. As described above, an attribute profile mayspecify the expected properties of members that work for theorganizational unit. In this case, the function that compares theattributes of the sample member may generate a relevancy score thatindicates how likely it is that the sample member works for theorganizational unit based on a weighted combination of the properties ofthe sample member and the attribute profile of the organizational unit.

At operation 406, the recommendation module 116 may identify a candidatemember based on an organizational unit similarity score between theidentified candidate and the identified organizational unit. Forexample, the recommendation module 116 may identify those memberprofiles in the social network service that are connected or otherwiserelated to an organizational unit via, for example, a ‘Works Within’relationship that matches or is similar to an organizational unitconnected to the sample member via a ‘Works Within’ relationship.Organizational units may be similar based on a comparison function thatgenerates a similarity score based on similarity of skills associatedwith members that are tagged to the organizational unit. In oneembodiment, the comparison function generates the similarity score usinga cosine similarity function and comparing predetermined and/orstandardized attributes, such as a skills or jobs function. In thisembodiment, the application of the cosine similarity function results inassociating candidate members having similar predetermined and/orstandardized attributes (e.g., similar skills or job functions) into anorganizational unit. To illustrate, where multiple organizational unitsare associated with members with a particular skill, the recommendationmodule 116 may increase the similarity score with respect to thoseorganizational units.

At operation 408, the recommendation module 116 may rank the identifiedcandidate member against a plurality of other candidate members. In someembodiments, the recommendation module 116 may rank the identifiedcandidate member against other candidate members identified by operation406. Accordingly, operation 408 may involve the recommendation module116 ranking multiple candidate members identified as being part of thesame or similar organizational unit of an organization. In some cases,the ranking of the identified candidate members may include generating acandidate score that is based on the seniority of the candidate, thegraph of the organization, connections between current employees of theorganization, the invitations within the company, and whether theseinvitations are accepted or not. To illustrate the use of the graph ofthe organization, ranking the identified candidate members may be basedon a graph similarity. As described above, the graph similarity betweentwo member profiles may be defined as a function that is driven by thenumber of common colleague connections. In one embodiment, the graphsimilarity is based on the Jaccard Similarity which, when applied to anumber of common colleague connections, is equal to:

$\frac{C_{AB}}{C_{A} + C_{B} + C_{AB}}$

where C_(AB) is the number of common colleagues between a member profileA and a member profile B, C_(A) is the number of colleagues for memberprofile A, and C_(B) is the number of colleagues for member profile B.Profile length, profile views, activity are other factors that may beused to generate the candidate ranking score.

At operation 410, the presentation module 117 may surface the candidatemember based on the ranking of the candidate member relative to theother candidate members. For example, one or more of the candidatemembers in the recommendation module 304 of FIG. 3. Surfacing thecandidate member may involve the presentation module 117 generating avisual indication of one or more of the candidate member's name,picture, title, location, or organizational unit.

As discussed above, generating colleague recommendations may be based oncriteria that, among other things, consider the similarity of anorganizational unit between multiple members of a social networkservice. However, in some cases, the social network service may lackcomplete information regarding the organizational units of anorganization and, in turn, relationships between members of the socialnetwork service and the organizational units of the organizations.

In some embodiments, to build organizational unit information, thesocial network service may define an organizational taxonomy. Thefeedback module 119 of FIG. 1 may then provide, to source members, auser interface that suggests a ‘Works Within’ relationship between acandidate member and an organizational unit within the organizationaltaxonomy. The user interface may provide user interface elements toindicate whether the suggested relationship is correct or not. If thefeedback module 119 receives an indication, through the user interfaceelements, that the suggested relationship is not correct, the feedbackmodule 119 may then suggest other organizational units from theorganizational taxonomy, which may, again, be marked as correct orincorrect by the source member. The feedback of whether the suggestedrelationship is correct or not may be used by the feedback module 119 tolearn what skills are associated to distinct organizations units. Thismay allow the feedback module 119 to get a distribution of skillsassociated to each organizational unit in the organizational taxonomy.This distribution of skill associated with an organizational unit isreferred to as an attribute profile. FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating anexample data model 500 of an organizational taxonomy that includesfeedback data gathered by, for example, the feedback module 119,according to an example embodiment. The data model 500 may include oneor more organizational units (e.g., organizational unit 502) eachassociated with skill attributes 506A-E through one or more memberprofiles 504A-C. The organizational unit 502 may be part of anorganizational taxonomy provided or otherwise specified by the socialnetwork service or may be specified by users of the social networkservice. The organizational unit 502, as shown in FIG. 5, may relate toa research development department of an organization. In some cases, thedata model 500 may model the skills associated with an organizationalunit of particular organization or, in other cases, may model the skillsassociated with an organizational unit across multiple organizations.

The member profiles 504A-C may represent user profiles of members of thesocial network service that have been associated with the organizationalunit 502. As discussed above, a member profile may be associated withthe organizational unit through a ‘Works Within” relationship that isspecified by the owner of the member profile or through feedback fromother members of the social network service.

In turn, the skill attributes 506A-E may be properties used by thesocial networking system to represent a skill that a member of thesocial network service has obtained through training, work experience,or the like. A member may cause the social network service to list askill attribute. As shown in FIG. 5, the member profile 504A may listC++ and Testing (e.g., skill attributes 506A-B) as skills possessed bythe member of the member profile 504A. The member profile 504B may listC++ (e.g., skill attribute 506C) as a skill possessed by the member ofthe member profile 504B. Similar to the member profile 504A, the memberprofile 504C may list C++ and Testing (e.g., skill attributes 506D-E) asskills possessed by the member of the member profile 504C.

Accordingly, the organizational unit 502 may be associated with theskill attributes of C++ and, to a lesser extent, TESTING through therelationships between the member profiles 504A-C. It is to beappreciated that in some embodiments the feedback module 119 maydirectly associate the skill attributes 506A-E with the organizationalunit 502, rather than through the member profiles 504A-C, as shown inFIG. 5. It is to also be appreciated that in some embodiments, the datamodel 500 may include weighting values to signify that C++ is moreprobative to a member belonging to an organizational unit than, forexample, the TESTING skill.

Operationally, in some embodiments, the data model 500 may be used bythe recommendation module 116 to assign member profiles toorganizational units. For example, the feedback module 119 may assignweights to each skill attribute to calculate an organizationalprobability score that a member profile belongs to a givenorganizational unit, based on the skill attributes assigned to themember profile. In one embodiment, the organizational probability scoreis determined through a boosting algorithm, such as AdaBoost orLogitBoost. The organizational probability score may reflect thelikelihood that based on properties of the member profile and the datamodel 500, the member belongs to one of the predefined organizationalunits. For example, a member who is lists C++ and TESTING as skillattributes may be determined to have a high probability of belonging toa RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT department. This may be implemented in someexamples based upon training sets of data in which members are manuallyclassified into the various categories based upon the information thesocial network service knows about them. These manually classifiedmember profiles may then be used as training data for a classificationalgorithm. For example, a Bayesian classifier may be used. Additionallyor alternatively, the Bayesian classifier may be combined with aboosting algorithm, such as AdaBoost or LogitBoost.

Additionally or alternatively, the feedback module 119 may, in someembodiments, train data relative to an employee score for a memberprofile. For example, in some cases, the feedback module 119 may cause aclient device operated by a member to display a user interface that askswhether a given member profile is a decision maker within anorganization. Responsive to receiving responses from multiple users, thefeedback module 119 may then utilize the responses in generating anorganizational importance score for the member profile. The importancescore may be used as a factor in the ranking operation 408 of the method400 of FIG. 4. The negative feedback element 308 and positive feedbackelement 310 may be mechanisms to provide feedback on a member profile'simportance within an organizational unit.

The various operations of example methods described herein may beperformed, at least partially, by one or more processors that aretemporarily configured (e.g., by software) or permanently configured toperform the relevant operations. Whether temporarily or permanentlyconfigured, such processors may constitute processor-implemented modulesor objects that operate to perform one or more operations or functions.The modules and objects referred to herein may, in some exampleembodiments, comprise processor-implemented modules and/or objects.

Similarly, the methods described herein may be at least partiallyprocessor-implemented. For example, at least some of the operations of amethod may be performed by one or more processors orprocessor-implemented modules. The performance of certain operations maybe distributed among the one or more processors, not only residingwithin a single machine or computer, but deployed across a number ofmachines or computers. In some example embodiments, the processor orprocessors may be located in a single location (e.g., within a homeenvironment, an office environment or at a server farm), while in otherembodiments the processors may be distributed across a number oflocations.

The one or more processors may also operate to support performance ofthe relevant operations in a “cloud computing” environment or within thecontext of “software as a service” (SaaS). For example, at least some ofthe operations may be performed by a group of computers (as examples ofmachines including processors), these operations being accessible via anetwork (e.g., the Internet) and via one or more appropriate interfaces(e.g., Application Program Interfaces (APIs)).

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of a machine in the form of a computer systemwithin which a set of instructions, for causing the machine to performany one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, may be executed.In alternative embodiments, the machine operates as a standalone deviceor may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networkeddeployment, the machine may operate in the capacity of a server or aclient machine in a client-server network environment, or as a peermachine in peer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. In apreferred embodiment, the machine will be a server computer, however, inalternative embodiments, the machine may be a personal computer (PC), atablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), amobile telephone, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge,or any machine capable of executing instructions (sequential orotherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further,while only a single machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shallalso be taken to include any collection of machines that individually orjointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform anyone or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

The example computer system 600 includes a processor 602 (e.g., acentral processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU) orboth), a main memory 601 and a static memory 606, which communicate witheach other via a bus 608. The computer system 600 may further include adisplay unit 610, an alphanumeric input device 617 (e.g., a keyboard),and a user interface (UI) navigation device 611 (e.g., a mouse). In oneembodiment, the display, input device and cursor control device are atouch screen display. The computer system 600 may additionally include astorage device 616 (e.g., drive unit), a signal generation device 618(e.g., a speaker), a network interface device 620, and one or moresensors 621, such as a global positioning system sensor, compass,accelerometer, or other sensor.

The drive unit 616 includes a machine-readable medium 622 on which isstored one or more sets of instructions and data structures (e.g.,software 623) embodying or utilized by any one or more of themethodologies or functions described herein. The software 623 may alsoreside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 601and/or within the processor 602 during execution thereof by the computersystem 600, the main memory 601 and the processor 602 also constitutingmachine-readable media.

While the machine-readable medium 622 is illustrated in an exampleembodiment to be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” mayinclude a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized ordistributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) that storethe one or more instructions. The term “machine-readable medium” shallalso be taken to include any tangible medium that is capable of storing,encoding or carrying instructions for execution by the machine and thatcause the machine to perform any one or more of the disclosedmethodologies, or that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying datastructures utilized by or associated with such instructions. The term“machine-readable medium” shall accordingly be taken to include, but notbe limited to, solid-state memories, and optical and magnetic media.Specific examples of machine-readable media include non-volatile memory,including by way of example semiconductor memory devices, e.g., EPROM,EEPROM, and flash memory devices; magnetic disks such as internal harddisks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROMdisks.

The software 623 may further be transmitted or received over acommunications network 626 using a transmission medium via the networkinterface device 620 utilizing any one of a number of well-knowntransfer protocols (e.g., HTTP). Examples of communication networksinclude a local area network (“LAN”), a wide area network (“WAN”), theInternet, mobile telephone networks, Plain Old Telephone (POTS)networks, and wireless data networks (e.g., Wi-Fi® and WiMax® networks).The term “transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangiblemedium that is capable of storing, encoding or carrying instructions forexecution by the machine, and includes digital or analog communicationssignals or other intangible medium to facilitate communication of suchsoftware.

Although an embodiment has been described with reference to specificexample embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications andchanges may be made to these embodiments without departing from thebroader spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, thespecification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative ratherthan a restrictive sense. The accompanying drawings that form a parthereof, show by way of illustration, and not of limitation, specificembodiments in which the subject matter may be practiced. Theembodiments illustrated are described in sufficient detail to enablethose skilled in the art to practice the teachings disclosed herein.Other embodiments may be utilized and derived therefrom, such thatstructural and logical substitutions and changes may be made withoutdeparting from the scope of this disclosure. This Detailed Description,therefore, is not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope ofvarious embodiments is defined only by the appended claims, along withthe full range of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

1. A computer-implemented method comprising: identifying a sample memberof a social network service, the sample member being associated withprior member activity involving a source member; determining anorganizational unit associated with the sample member, theorganizational unit representing a department within an organization;identifying, by one or more processors, a plurality of candidatemembers, the identifying being based on each candidate member beingidentified as being associated with the organizational unit; andsurfacing the plurality of candidate members to a computer system beingoperated by the source member.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising ranking the plurality of candidate members prior to surfacingthe plurality of candidate members to a computers system being operatedby the source member.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the ranking ofthe plurality of candidate members is based on comparing a candidatescore generated for each candidate member, the candidate score being afunction of at least one of: a seniority of a candidate, a graph of theorganization associated with the candidate member, connections withother members that are employees of the organization, invitations sentto members of the organization, or an acceptance rate of theinvitations.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining theorganizational unit associated with the sample member comprises:calculating a first relevancy score for the organizational unit, thefirst relevancy score being a function of an attribute profileassociated with the organizational unit and properties of the samplemember; calculating a second relevancy score for a differentorganizational unit, the second relevancy score being a function of anattribute profile associated with the different organizational unit andproperties of the sample member; and selecting the organizational unitbased on a comparison of the first relevancy score and the secondrelevancy score.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the attribute profileassociated with the organizational unit is a weighted combination ofproperties.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising, updating theweighted combination of properties based on feedback received from auser of the social networking service, the feedback indicating that amember profile is connected to the organizational unit.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the prior member activity involving the source memberis a profile visit.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein surfacing theplurality of candidate members to the computer system being operated bythe source member includes surfacing the plurality of candidate membersto a module of a sales solution tool.
 9. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving feedback from one candidate member of theplurality of candidate members, the feedback indicating that the onecandidate member is important; and updating an organizational importancescore associated with the one candidate member, the organizationalimportance score being usable to rank the one candidate against othercandidate members.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:receiving feedback from one candidate member of the plurality ofcandidate members, the feedback indicating that the one candidate memberis unimportant; and updating an organizational importance scoreassociated with the one candidate member, the organizational importancescore being usable to rank the one candidate against other candidatemembers.
 11. A computer system comprising: at least one processor; arecommendation module implemented by the at least one processor andconfigured to: identify a sample member of a social network service, thesample member being associated with prior member activity involving asource member; determine an organizational unit associated with thesample member, the organizational unit representing a department withinan organization; identify, by one or more processors, a plurality ofcandidate members, the identifying being based on each candidate memberbeing identified as being associated with the organizational unit; and apresentation module implemented by the at least one processor andconfigured to surface the plurality of candidate members to a computersystem being operated by the source member.
 12. The computer system ofclaim 11, wherein the recommendation module being further configured torank the plurality of candidate members prior to surfacing the pluralityof candidate members to a computers system being operated by the sourcemember.
 13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the ranking of theplurality of candidate members is based on comparing a candidate scoregenerated for each candidate member, the candidate score being afunction of at least one of: a seniority of a candidate, a graph of theorganization associated with the candidate member, connections withother members that are employees of the organization, invitations sentto members of the organization, or an acceptance rate of theinvitations.
 14. The computer system of claim 11, wherein therecommendation module is configured to determine that the organizationalunit is associated with the sample member based on: calculating a firstrelevancy score for the organizational unit, the first relevancy scorebeing a function of an attribute profile associated with theorganizational unit and properties of the sample member; calculating asecond relevancy score for a different organizational unit, the secondrelevancy score being a function of an attribute profile associated withthe different organizational unit and properties of the sample member;and selecting the organizational unit based on a comparison of the firstrelevancy score and the second relevancy score.
 15. The computer systemof claim 14, wherein the attribute profile associated with theorganizational unit is a weighted combination of properties.
 16. Thecomputer system of claim 15, further comprising a feedback moduleimplemented by the at least one processor and configured to update theweighted combination of properties based on feedback received from auser of the social networking service, the feedback indicating that amember profile is connected to the organizational unit.
 17. The computersystem of claim 11, wherein the prior member activity involving thesource member is a profile visit.
 18. The computer system of claim 11,wherein the presentation module surfaces the plurality of candidatemembers to the computer system being operated by the source member bysurfacing the plurality of candidate members to a module of a salessolution tool.
 19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storingexecutable instructions thereon, which, when executed by a processor,cause the processor to perform operations comprising: identifying asample member of a social network service, the sample member beingassociated with prior member activity involving a source member;determining an organizational unit associated with the sample member,the organizational unit representing a department within anorganization; identifying, by one or more processors, a plurality ofcandidate members, the identifying being based on each candidate memberbeing identified as being associated with the organizational unit; andsurfacing the plurality of candidate members to a computer system beingoperated by the source member.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 19 wherein the operations further comprise ranking theplurality of candidate members prior to surfacing the plurality ofcandidate members to a computers system being operated by the sourcemember.